Books about love, life, racial harmony and compassion.

Of tenacity…

My daughter always tells me that I am the most tenacious person she knows. That may be good, and it may be bad. It just means to me that I am perceived as someone who won’t give up easily. Not only if I want to prove something to myself, and I often do, but very rarely it also means that I want to prove myself to others. Not in a show-off kind of way, but just that I can do most things for myself although I am not married or wealthy or smart.

A saying that Izzy and I believe in, is ‘Short term pain, long term gain. Short term gain, long term pain’. By being tenacious you usually go the short term pain route, but it is always better in the end. You just have to bite the bullet and stick with it, it is no use to procrastinate, if you don’t start something you can’t finish it. It is also good to teach yourself some patience in the process, especially if it is a difficult or confusing process.

Maybe my tenacity comes from having to struggle for things my whole life long, nothing ever has come easy to me. I might have gained my first inspiration from this 1976 song by Bruce Millar…

Now after struggling through all sorts of issues for more that half a century I have grown a little tired. I struggle for longer to get something small done. If it’s not the eyes that battle to see, it’s the fingers that can’t grasp so well anymore, I drop things, I forget things – but it is the lack of finances which is the biggest stumbling block. You can’t make something out of nothing. It takes money to make money… But when a project is complete I feel such a sense of achievement that it is well worth my while. It is when I fail that I become utterly despondent.

A couple of years ago, to endeavour to create some income, I started making crafts out of polystyrene, those little environmentally unfriendly trays

used in the packaging of foods, mushrooms and other veg, which are used a lot in this home. I could never throw these trays away due to the enormous environmental impact this product has on our oceans.

They were also taking over my house. Due to the fact that they are not biodegradable nor economically recyclable (apparently), I felt that they had to be re-used in some way.

I came up with this. http://www.wildernessuncatchers.co.za/ Hanging mobiles which I called ‘sun catchers‘ due to the sun reflecting off the jeweled beads and crystals I used and ‘breezecatchers‘, due to the floating ribbons. I cut the polystyrene in butterfly and dolphin shapes and added a sea sand finish to them. Later I also made them into individual Xmas tree ornaments. We sold them at the local Friday night market and a few good friends bought some online.

But eventually the amount of work and cost involved could not justify the meager income, as I barely broke even. So that noble endeavour sadly had to be stopped.

/

When I don’t know how to do something, I remember what my daughter taught her mother. Google is your friend. With the help of Google and YouTube I have over the years operated on and fixed my computers, wired plugs, self published my books, grown veggies from kitchen waste, blogged my blogs and even created my own websites. I have links on my author site to Amazon where you can purchase my books, and even a showcase for some of my favourite photographs. All for ‘free’ but involving a lot of hard work. And tenacity!!!

Take a look at it here and give me your feedback please. iniajardine.wixsite.com/iniajardine

Something else I am tenacious in, is my quest for everyone to become vegetarian and/or vegan, to stop the relentless cruelty to innocent animals and for us all to live together in racial harmony – free of historical and religious prejudices. You will say, NEVER. But you don’t know me very well if you think that I will just give up. No matter how much some bigots shout at me, I will be tenacious. I may make a small difference at first, but you know about ripples in a pond? About the flutter of a butterfly wing creating a tidal wave? About the starfish?

I have recently been told that I struggle so much in this life because I have a huge Karmic debt to pay. Well, I’m paying! Let me go soon Karma…please.

Until then I will keep on trying, I will be tenacious. I will try until I die.